ArticleBringing discipline to your sustainability initiativesMany companies have more sustainability initiatives than they can possibly manage. Here’s how to get them under control.

August 2014 | by Sheila Bonini and Steven Swartz

Sustainability has become a part of life for many companies. For some, it’s a matter of meeting demands from customers seeking socially responsible goods and services. For others, it’s about addressing pressure from stakeholders—including investors—or pursuing their own corporate values. For still others, especially those in a resource-constrained environment, it’s a strategic imperative. Whatever the impetus, sustainability has become sufficiently pervasive that defining it and executing business programs, products, and practices with an eye to their environmental and social implications has become a demanding managerial exercise.

For some, sustainability has proved to be a valuable lens through which they have identified opportunities that they might have oth…

President Aquino III shares the stage with the 2014 Order of National Scientist awardees Drs. Edgardo Gomez, Ramon Barba, Gavino Trono, Jr., and Angel Alcala., Also in photo are DOST Secretary Mario Montejo and NAST president William Padolina. (Photo by Gil Nartea / Malacañang Photo Bureau)

MANILA, Philippines - Four Filipino scientists who have made outstanding contributions in marine botany, biological scinces, horticulture and marine biology were conferred the Order of National Scientist Tuesday in simple rites at Malacanang Palace.

President Benigno Aquino III gave the recognition to Angel Alcala, PhD. (for Biological Sciences); Ramon Barba, PhD.(Horticulture); Gavino C. Trono, PhD (Marine Botany); and Edgardo D. Gomez, PhD (Marine Biology) after they were endorsed by the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).

Australia-Pakistan Agriculture Sector Linkages programme (ASLP) launched a domestic marketing development project to improve the quality of mango at local level and imparting training to orchard owners for direct marketing of their produce. Professor Dr Nazim Hussain Labar and ASLP project officer Suhail Ayyaz Ansari said mangoes are one of Pakistan's more important fruit crops with an annual production of around one million tonnes (4% of world production) and exports of 7-10% of production valued at around US $20 million per year. Pakistan receives the lowest average price per kilogram (US $0.30) of any major mango exporting country in the world, largely due to the poor quality of its fruit combined with poor marketing practices. After a decade of steadily increasing production, there is now concern in Pakistan that mango production is static or declining. Key production issues that impact upon yield and fruit quality are inadequate orchard and irrig…

The Peruvian mango industry is hoping to take full advantage of a growing U.S consumption for the fruit by implementing a quality seal that will set it aside from others.

Peruvian Mango Exporters’ Association (APEM) general manager Juan Carlos Rivera told www.freshfruitportal.com the seal’s design and requisites were being finalized and he was now seeing which companies would like to start trials.

“What we are looking for now is a consensus amongst the possible users of the seal and to see what companies would like to undergo a pilot scheme,” Rivera said.

“There is a group of companies who are on board, and so we’re holding meetings with them and we’re expecting them to test the seal.”

Rivera added he was focusing more on packers rather than growers.

“It’s impossible for all producers to use it as there are thousands here in Peru. However, we have better control and better access to the packing plants,” he said.

(NaturalNews) While the world of conventional medicine lines up to profit from the Ebola panic, there is no mention anywhere in the mainstream media of the criminal corporation behind the Ebola vaccine.

GlaxoSmithKline, now being celebrated by the pro-pharma press, is the same company that also has a proven criminal record of bribing physicians and knowingly distributing misleading information about the safety of their drug products.

Just two years ago, GSK plead guilty to felony crimes in the United States and was forced to pay an historical $3 billion fine for committing those crimes. After paying the fine, GSK was then exempted from normal rules regarding criminal enterprise, allowing it to continue conducting business with the federal government.

Geopolitical Weekly TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014 - 03:02 Stratfor Editor's Note:We originally ran this Global Affairs with Robert D. Kaplan column on May 1, 2013. We are republishing it in light of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Aug. 10 election as Turkey's new president.By Robert D. Kaplan and Reva Bhalla
At a time when Europe and other parts of the world are governed by forgettable mediocrities, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister for a decade now, seethes with ambition. Perhaps the only other leader of a major world nation who emanates such a dynamic force field around him is Russia's Vladimir Putin, with whom the West is also supremely uncomfortable.

Erdogan and Putin are ambitious because they are men who unrepentantly grasp geopolitics. Putin knows that any responsible Russian leader ensures that Russia has buffer zones of some sort in places like Eastern Europe and the Caucasus; Erdogan knows that Turkey must become a substantial power in the Near East in order t…